{"id":374928,"date":"2025-08-26T12:35:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T12:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/374928\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T12:35:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T12:35:23","slug":"bbc-verify-live-fact-checkers-assess-reforms-migration-plan-and-investigating-gaza-hospital-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/374928\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC Verify Live: Fact-checkers assess Reform&#8217;s migration plan, and investigating Gaza hospital strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How much do migrant returns flights actually cost?published at 10:59 British Summer Time<\/p>\n<p>10:59 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-8kvzjk-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/58192aae-f7b8-48da-a9fa-0ba5e78e7743.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/><strong>Lucy Gilder<\/strong><br \/>BBC Verify journalist<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A departure board labelled 'deportation departures'\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/997205de-c794-4cf1-9ed6-f544d3719f8c.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"3500\" height=\"2333\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, PA Media<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Reform UK says it&#8217;s planning to run five migrant returns flights per day as part of its ambition to deport people who arrive in the UK illegally.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It says this and other measures in the plan will cost \u00a310bn over five years but that money would be saved by not housing asylum seekers in hotels. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There\u2019s not a huge amount of publicly available information about the cost of migrant return flights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/assets.publishing.service.gov.uk\/media\/64999700831311001329637f\/Illegal_Migration_Bill_IA_-_LM_Signed-final.pdf\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A recent Home Office assessment, external<\/a> &#8211;  which looked at the economic impact of the previous government\u2019s Illegal Migration Bill &#8211; estimated that it would cost \u00a322,000 per person being returned to a third country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It said that this cost \u201cincludes their removal flight as well as the contract for resource to monitor and transport individuals from detention to any legal court sittings, from detention to the flight for removal, and onboard the flight to the recipient safe third country\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">We haven\u2019t seen the full detail of Reform\u2019s plan yet but the party has indicated people would be returned to their home countries and that third countries would also be considered. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In the first year of the current government, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/returns-from-the-uk-and-illegal-working-activity-since-july-2024\/returns-from-the-uk-between-5-july-2024-and-4-july-2025\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">66 chartered returns flights were recorded by the Home Office, external<\/a>, up from 63 in the same period the year before. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How much do migrant returns flights actually cost?published at 10:59 British Summer Time 10:59 BST Lucy GilderBBC Verify&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-374928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115095098226887486","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}